From: Simon Stapleton (simon_at_tufty.co.uk)
Date: Sat Aug 14 2004 - 01:14:52 PDT
On 13 Aug 2004, at 16:34:47 +0200, Nicolas Zinovieff <krugazor_at_free.fr>
wrote:
> Aw man... Are we _still_ doing this?
Looks like it, yes. The problem with people like us, who insist on
using old technlogy that's arguably better than anything newer, is that
we will keep jumping on every possible hope of having an updated
version ;-(
> - Mac OS X is _not_ fitted for embedded devices,
Or pen interface. The only thing I've ever seen that _really_ works
for pen interface is NOS.
> which means that the batterylife of such a device, with a size of an
> iBook, would probably
> be a couple of hours
True, but a 'dockable' remote display with low-power embedded processor
and no storage / limited solid state storage and airport express,
linked to a base station that does real processing and storage might be
do-able. With InkWell recognition, maybe. Also, bear in mind that
most current PC based laptops give a battery life of not much better
than that. Hell, the Thinkpad I've been loaned by a client so I can
test has a battery life of <45 minutes if you try to do anything useful
with it. How I laugh when I think my Wallstreet does 6 hours. As for
my Newton... no need for comment.
Anyway the article got me searching the patents, and although I found
nothing particularly relevant to this I did find the following, which
is useful / interesting for those that want to know more about how Ink
actually works:
<http://v3.espacenet.com/textdes?
DB=EPODOC&IDX=US5463696&F=0&QPN=US5463696>
> - The Tablet PC is a flop. Really. Get over it.
<dream>
Indeed. But I know quite a few graphic designers (and geeks, myself
included) who would (insert heinous crime here) for a largeish (say A4)
graphics tablet like the wacoms that they could walk around with and
sketch on. Now Wacom have some tablets that can do most of this, but
they have to be wired. If Apple can solve the bandwidth problem of big
graphics over wireless, they would have something that sold like
hotcakes, at least to the graphics people out there. If it could do
some limited hwr as well, so much the better. 8", as per the 'leaked'
stuff is about A5, IIRC, which isn't really up to snuff for graphics
work, sadly, but might _just_ be do-able wrt bandwidth considerations
(assuming a fast, dedicated, wireless connection)
</dream>
Anyway, I thought the patent link might be of interest.
Simon
-- PGP Key Id : 0x50D0698D -- Well, we finally have an indoor toilet. But what new disasters have struck the Alpenproject? Find out at : <http://www.tufty.co.uk/Move/index.html> -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Aug 15 2004 - 18:30:01 PDT